Members of the Victoria Natural History Society accompanied ER warden Garry Fletcher on a field trip to Race Rocks this morning. Most of the members were avid birdwatchers so this time of year was ideal to view some of the many species that stopover at Race Rocks in their fall migration.See the census records submitted by Daniel Donnecke

Some of the birds seen on the trip”

A short-billed dowitcher and a Black Turnstone

4 white fronted geese are still in the areaa

Brandt’s cormorants on middle rock

A flock of American pipits were feeding in the area where the vegetation was flattened by the sealions

Also on a trip on a ecotourism vessel, Liam Singh took this image of this wandering tattler which we had missed.

One branded california sealion was hauled out near the docks. The number was not clear.

This juvenile short-billed Dowitcher was seen up near the tower in August 18 2009. It was very tame and quite unconcerned with the local humans. Image by Ian Perry.

The same juvenile, (Aug 18/ 09) ,

shown above. Images by G.Fletcher

Dowitcher probing for invertebrates

Note the Halosaccion band of the intertidal zone where it is feeding

rear view- note buff colored underparts

side view- note dark eye.

Eukarya

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Subphylum

Vertebrata

Class

Aves

Order

Charadriiformes

Family

Scolopacidae

Genus

Limnodromus

Species

griseus

Common Name:

Short Billed Dowitcher

The Short-billed Dowitcher breeds in Northern Canada. It winters in South America.
It occurs rarely and solitary at Race Rocks where it stops on migration. Short-billed Dowitchers normally are birds of mudflats along the Pacific Coast. One individual bird was filmed on May 1 2003 (above)as it probed for food among the barnacles and algae of the Halosaccion zone at Race Rocks.

In the photo to the right from September 2005, another dowitcher roamed through the area near the base of the rock on the East side. So presumably we have pictures of the stopover going North and South!

This video shows the Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus) in the intertidal zone to the East of the docks at Race Rocks. Note the “sewing machine ” action as it probes for food. The biology class watched this bird on May1/03 before starting on an intertidal transect in the same area. The coloration was noticeably buff-colored when compared to other shore birds. This individual was very fearless, even returning to feed briefly nearby after we had laid down our transect. This is normally a bird of the Pacific Coast mudflats.